his father, Behauddin, was a professor of theology
under the Sultan Khwarezm Shah. His discourses were largely attended by
great and small, but for some reason he seems to have excited the
Sultan's displeasure. He therefore left Balkh with the whole of his
family and dependants, taking an oath not to return thither while the
Sultan was on the throne. Behauddin's way led him to Nishapur, where he
met the Sheikh Fariddudin Attar, who, pointing to Jalaluddin, said,
"Take care! This son of yours will light a great flame in the world."
Attar also presented the boy with his _Asrarnama_, or "book of
secrets." In every town which they visited the chief men came to see
Behauddin and listened to his teaching. Behauddin and his son made the
pilgrimage to Mecca, after which the former settled at Konia (Iconium),
in Asia Minor ("Roum"), whence the poet received the title "Rumi." Here
Behauddin obtained as great a reputation as he had done at Balkh, and on
his death Jalaluddin succeeded him as "Sheikh," or spiritual instructor.
He soon grew tired of the ordinary round of Mohammedan learning and gave
himself up to mysticism. This tendency of his received an additional
impulse from the arrival in Iconium of an extraordinary man, the fakir
Shams-i-Tabriz, a disciple of the celebrated Sheikh Ruknuddin.

One day Ruknuddin, when conversing with Shams-i-Tabriz, had said to him,
"In the land of Roum is a Sufi who glows with divine love; thou must go
thither and fan this glow to a clear flame." Shams-i-Tabriz immediately
went to Iconium. On his arrival he met Jalaluddin riding on a mule in
the midst of a throng of disciples who were escorting him from the
lecture hall to his house. He at once intuitively recognised that here
was the object of his search and his longing. He therefore went straight
up to him and asked, "What is the aim of all the teaching that you give,
and all the religious exercises which you practise?" "The aim of my
teaching," answered Jalaluddin, "is the regulation of conduct as
prescribed by the traditions and the moral and religious law." "All
this," answered Shams-i-Tabriz, "is mere skimming the surface." "But
what then is under the surface?" asked Jalaluddin. "Only complete union
of the knower with the known is knowledge," answered Shams-i-Tabriz and
quoted the following verse of Hakim Sanai:--

Only when knowledge frees thee from thyself,
Is such knowledge better than ignorance.

These words made a most pow